What’s the buzz at Glenbow Ranch?

Volunteers at Glenbow Ranch bee box event (Photo by Sean Feagan)

There’s a lot of buzz happening at Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park in Alberta.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has partnered with Wildlife Preservation Canada (WPC) to provide sustainable habitat for native bees by installing bee boxes on Glenbow Ranch, located just minutes from Calgary’s city limits. While Glenbow Ranch is not an NCC property, it is located within NCC’s Bow Natural Area.

In April 2018, NCC teamed up with WPC and, with the help of our Conservation Volunteers (CV), installed 100 underground, false-underground, surface and tree colony bee boxes. A large above-ground bee hotel for solitary bees was also created with the help of TransCanada employees in the fall of 2017.

These colony bee boxes and hotel will be monitored throughout the summer by citizen scientists, through a monitoring program organized by WPC.

Since 2013, WPC has been working to conserve habitat for declining pollinators through monitoring, research, conservation breeding and education. The study is primarily focused on researching the special concern yellow banded bumble bee and the threatened western bumble bee, both of which can be found in this area.

Bees are incredibly important to our ecosystem. In order to combat their declining populations across Canada, NCC’s Alberta Region holds CV events that focus on pollinators. With around 320 species of bees in Alberta, it’s important to protect and rebuild their lost or damaged habitats.

Volunteers at Glenbow Ranch bee box event (Photo by Sean Feagan)

In 2017, more than 200 Conservation Volunteers in Alberta came together for bee conservation. From building and installing bee hotels, to planting native shrubs and flowers to provide food for bees, these events helped create a stronger future for bee populations in the province.

This year’s event at Glenbow Ranch helped provide habitat for native and ground-nesting species. Other events across the province this year, such as removing invasive species to allow native ones to flourish, will help create sustainable food sources for pollinators.

If you would like to lend a hand in conservation in Alberta or in another area of Canada, join us by signing up for a Conservation Volunteer event here.